Day 3, Year of the Catastrophe – Monday, 2nd of May, 2020.

02:23 pm –the Kings House: Basement –

Retaking the house would not be the easiest thing to do, but Daniel was ready to retreat towards the bunker at a moment’s notice. He left his naked double there to shut the door quickly for safety. Then he stepped out into the relative darkness. Electricity had gone out, but it was the middle of the day, so the light that came in from the staircase made it possible to see at least half decently. He grabbed his axe tightly. There was nothing in the narrow hallway. It would be best to clear the basement first, before heading upstairs, so he slowly and silently advanced. A glance back at the bunker door showed the damage the Red Claw had done. Hundreds of scratch marks in the solid steel door. Fighting that thing would not be funny at all.

Daniel hoped, prayed and wished all at the same time that it would be gone and that it had taken it’s goons with it. Then he opened the first door to the left, that led towards the heating room. The door had not been damaged so he just opened it, while hiding behind it for cover. Nothing Happened. He glanced inside. Empty. Neat. He let go off the door and wanted to advance. A mistake.

The heavy, fire proof door fell back into its frame very loudly, and immediately Daniel heard a zombie rummaging the storage room next to the staircase. It was weird how you never noticed how fast a quick walking pace was unless you are on the receiving end. It was just a step short of running. The undead approached quickly. A man, around 180cm, but he was bulky, with a lot of muscles. Yikes. Daniel ripped the door to the heating room open again, thus blocking a bit of the doorway. As he let go, the closing mechanism let the heavy door clash into the undead man’s face. Not that the zombie was moved by that at all. A clearly broken nose did not deter him at all.

The door was pushed aside opening it fully, this giving it access to Daniel. Who was swinging his axe at the guy’s head already. When the dull blade made contact with the undead, a very loud cracking sound was heard. Like breaking a very large and dry twig. Blood and gore squished out of the wound, but the axe had not fully penetrated the skull. Luckily the impact threw the corpse back on its back. Daniel tried not be bothered by the gore and let the axe sink down for a final strike.

Sadly it was a kind of botched move. The axe sunk into the jaw, shattering it with a nasty sound and ripped open large portions of the throat. If it had been a human, this would make him very dead. But it was surreal how unmoved this body was by the attack. It just casually grabbed the axe while it tried to get back up. Daniel stepped closer, ripping at the axe and pushing right after. The sudden change in movement let the axe crash back down on the already damaged head. This time it sunk in deep. Blood and brain squished everywhere. Nasty! The corpse grew limp. He raised his fist for a victory pose and yelled out in joy, over his first kill. An action that he started to regret instantly, for he had seen how awkward that had looked from his second body's perspective. Never do that again, he said to himself in thoughts. Then another growl was heard, as a second corpse stumbled down the staircase in a storm of limbs.

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Daniel immediately took advantage to step in and squish the head, this time an old woman in her fifties. It popped very much easier.

Quickly he checked the guest room and the storage for more undead, but it seemed those were the only ones. Fighting down here was quite advantageous. They just fell and were easy to finish off. But the bodies… He would have to clean those up. This was disgusting. Fucking hell. While his main body kept watch at the staircase, he moved the second one into the guest room. There were a few sets of clothes that could be used with some training sneakers. They would not have fit Daniel before, but now they did. They switched positions and his main body also changed into something more comfortable.

Looking like a pair of hipsters from the 1980’s and quite gay as well, they got a rain cover from the storage room and threw the two dead bodies on it.

The man was so heavy, they needed a few moments. Then Daniel noticed an orange-red stone at the base of the neck of the male corpse. It wasn’t very large, about the size of a nail. A pebble. What the fuck was that? He poked it with his axe head, then it flickered and dissolved part of the corpse before it fell to the ground. There it stopped shimmering. Carefully Daniel touched it. Nothing happened. Shrugging, he put it in his pocket. He would figure it out later.

Then they carefully made their way upstairs. The door to the cellar had been ripped out of its hinges, and the alarm clock in the kitchen, that he had put at the window to distract the zombies when they had attacked, had been ripped apart. Otherwise they made a mess of the carpets, some decoration, but nothing too wild. The front door was splinters, with two bigger chunks still hanging there somehow. Daniel sighed.

He would have to replace that one somehow. There were no undead lingering in the living room or kitchen, but he found a small one upstairs. A boy, maybe 12 years old. Daniel baited him downstairs before he smashed its head in. With a single blow. Huh. He was getting better at this.

He felt a little bad after he killed that child, but the feeling subsided quickly. There was nothing he could have done. Daniel and his second body threw the tiny corpse outside and blocked the entry off with a few pieces of living room furniture. It was enough to not be surprised too much by a sudden invasion while hauling the two dead bodies upstairs. And that was a real chore. They were limp and hard to handle, not to mention very heavy. But wrapping them up in a quite old carpet, it was finally possible. Luckily the corpses did not bleed too much for some reason.

With two bodies, Daniel felt twice as tired. Oh, what a chore this was. He felt hungry. One body walked downstairs to get some mineral water and cola while the other one remained at the kitchen to cook some spaghetti. Sadly the power was out. Even trying to restore the fuse had no effect. Apparently that was gone for good. He would have to figure out a way to cook things without attracting too much attention later. For now he grabbed some chocolate bars and they took a short break.

Then he face-palmed both his heads at the same time. He just remembered. With electricity gone… so were his freezers. All the frozen meat and stuff… It would start to spoil….